I have lusted after a Basis Debut turntable for years, and recently was close to purchasing one used. That is until I explored Basis Audio's service policy. Service is not even a link on their website... I had to find the turntable policy, which explains they are a "victim of their own success" since they have such great sales success and excellent service, they can only provide very limited information about their older products. Then they say to know more you must send a table in for evaluation. The fees for evaluation are alarming to me (see below). $3400 just to evaluate a Debut vacuum table? I planned on spending just a little more than that to buy the table in the first place. I emailed Basis weeks ago to ask if I was understanding the policy correctly and whether the fee was applied to eventual repairs. No answer.
Since this evaluation cost, and the general vibe I get from reading their website is "We don't want to service our tables so we will price ourselves out of most of the trouble," is preventing me from wanting to buy a Basis table, I thought I would ask experienced Basis owners here what they think. I've heard nothing but great things about their products over the years, but if I can't have it serviced if I need to, it just scares me away.
From the Basis website:
4. Basis turntables are extremely precise and technical tests and measurements are labor intensive. Pricing for the evaluation, based on model, is as follows:
1400: $500
2001, 2200: $1,200
2500: $1,600
2800: $1,800
Debut: $3,200
Debut Vac: $3,400
Inspiration: $3,500
Inspiration with Vacuum: $3,700
Vector Tonearm: $1,200
SuperArm: $1,600
